What is the Point of Touring?

Is it to increase your friend count, entertain, simply play music in front of people, connect with people, feel like a rock star? To you, the musician, what is the point of touring?

What *really* is the point of touring? Answer: To personally knock the audience out of their seats with your performance so they leave wanting more.

Here are a few things that will be helpful.

Surround yourself with a handful of people who believe in you who aren't parents and aren't in the band. Put yourself in a location that feels comfortable. Be surrounded by artists with similar goals and similar paths. (Great stuff comes from bands feeding of of each other. Movements start when bands feed off of each other.) And, make sure someone responsible is running your 'show'.

Play enough that you are making money doing it. There is one really good way of measuring how well you are doing as a band. If people are paying to come see you then you are connecting with an audience.

Make sure your manager or someone who cares is keeping track of some numbers for you. If you've been gigging for eight months and you are starting to see a rise in your monthly take at shows then good for you. If you see a spike at month two when you opened for Death Cab, but then the line dropped way back down, then you might think twice about putting so much time and energy into landing that opening spot when all it did was gave u a spike and bragging rights.

If you can get yourself on the road and build up to the break-even point and then on to putting money in your pocket, you are on your way. Today's world is different with people broadcasting themselves in every direction, but as a band or musician who wants to be a real pro it really isn't that different. Just play. Having a pro knock my head off with a performance never gets old or cheap.

So the next time you feel like you need to be on tour opening for some amazing, act ask yourself why. Do you need to be on this tour because you mesh with the band and you bring something to the table, or do you just want their fans that they worked hard to get to see you?